A machine felt of this type is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,781,967. It has a modular structure, between two longitudinal thread bunches there being a transverse thread bunch or a fabric as the insert. On the outsides of and between the longitudinal thread bunches there are fiber layers. The individual modules are connected to one another by needling of the fiber layers.
Machine felts of the above described type are produced to be continuous. Aside from the fact that the length of these machine felts is limited, therefore they cannot be used everywhere, the mounting of the felt for example in the press part of a paper-making machine is difficult. Mounting of a machine felt is easier when it is present in an finite length and on its faces has coupling elements via which the ends of the machine felt can be coupled to one another in the machine (compare EP-A-0 261 488.